Morning journal and courier., 1887-12-09

l and his solid, swarthy hands showed that | he did. He could not afford to keep horse, but depended upon hiring from his next neighbor such horse work as was inn ! perative for his seanty farming. He had three miles to walk to church. But that didn't prevent his usually being among the first to arrive there; in fact he almost all ways was Tn his seat before Esquire Brown who lived in the nice, square old house across the way from the meeting house came into his. That three miles of road
 grew amazingly familiar to the good dea- con and his boys. It had quite 8 little stretch of woods on it and he knew every tree. He used to allow 6 good hour to do the distance, and not wearing watch was in the habit of timing himself by the houses and partly by big pine tree That tree, which steod some distance from any house, but which lowered like a spire above all the greenery around it. was half way, and he liked to get that far before the first notes of the church bell-which rang fifteen minutes, was still five and finally tolled ten-began to waken the echoes. John Drew's house was three-quar- ters of the way, and the deacon suspected himself of being late and hurried up if he didn't pass John's front gable before the last note of the ringing died away. Mrs. Bassett did not excel in physical strength and could not always walk so far, though she often did. On such Sundays she sometimes staid
 at home and sometimes got lift in Neigh Dor Cushman's wagon. A storm which would keep the deacon himself at home would be almost as much of a phenomenon as an earthquake. We we'll remember one northesster in January when he, with the
 pastor and the sexton, had the morning ser
 vice to themselves.
 It was pleasant sight, vixen the deaoon's
 wife was there, to see that family in church. She was rosy-cheeked, wholesome-1ooking person at one end of the pew and he pIain inc uhqfo ia1 at the ether; and John and Isaac, and Ce- phas and Lemuel and Mary Ann filled up the long seat solidly between them, while little Polly sat on a steol. Tho intermission be- tween morning and afternoon service used to be one hour, and as the old ''Sabba'day house." where former generations from time immemorial had lunched, had rotted down and ignobly fallen to pieces, until for decen- cy's sake the fragments had been carried away, without eyer being renewed, the dea- con and his family iR pleasant summer weather ate their apples and doughnuts and cheese in the little grove on the hill just back of the meeting house, and when it drizzled hung about the horse sheds; while Tn winter time they staid round the stoves in the lobby. Many were the invitations which the deacon he'd to the parsonage, or to Els quire Browns, or Dr. Spooner's to pass this nooning; but he always declined with thanks, because he had too many children to take along with him, and he couldn't think him. self in the way of his duty to leave them ''to their own head" "They were good children" he said, ''as children go; but we have all got human hearts, and so we are all
 deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and need constant watching, partic- ularly on the Lords day."
 No better nearer sat in that congregation than Deacon Bassett. His eyes were alight and his face fairly glewed with pleased in- terest, while the preacher pursued his 1ogi- cal way calmly among his frst1ies and sec ondlies, to his s'dna11y'' and 'tonce more to conclude" The deacon loved the truth and he believed his pastor preached the truth, and he loved to hear him preach it. He always felt peculiarly safe when that fa- miliar voice vas expounding the everlasting word. Yet still he was very courteous in his quiet way to exchanges and strangers for he argued, "Our pastor would never ask us to hear them if they were not worth hearing, and we may some day entertain an angel unawarss."
 There was no lecture room or other con- venienee for the holding of subordinate ser vices in or about the meeting house in Dea- con Bassett's time, and by consequence the weekly prayer meeting was held either in some school house or in a private dwelling, rotating at convenience. That used to bring the meeting about once in six weeks to the deaeon's own house. which was always open for such a purpose. The sanded floor of the { best room was very clean at such time, and the good deacon looked his happiest when \ thus rendering religious hospitalities to his neighbors-the pastor and his wife always being expected to a previous supper. And there was something very effective and some times affecting about the simple, honest way l in which he talked in regard to what he found the religion of Christ had been able to ! do for the chief of sinners like him. And l the best of all his talk about religion, wheth- such occasion or in private, was that IL. L knew that he meant exactly what he said, and that his religion was genuine, reaching t in the very joints and marrow, and ruling | the very thoughts and intsnts of the heart. | There was once on summer Sabbath ! deacon's meeting, tho pastor being taken severely i'll too late for any other arrange ment to be made. And as Deacon Jones, | then senior deacon, happened to be out of | town, Deacon Bassett found himself sudden ! ly, and without any warning, with tremen- ! dous and wholly unexpected job on his | hands. The pastor had anticipated matters
 so far as to have selected couple of printed ! sermons from his library for the days use. But the deacon felt that he should be outside of his gift wore he to undertake to read | them. So he got young Robbins, the acade-
 my teacher, to do that, as we'll as to give out l the psalns-fnding him quite willing. The | deacon himaelf prayed. And that service ! was done so simply, and feelingly and ten y about it, that even some city people who wsressvisiting at Esquire Browns said 'fthey wished they could have a deacon meeting once in while at home."
 The children were all grown to manhood l and womanhood, and Mrs. Bassett had gone to her well-earned rest before the deacon perceptibly failed. One Sabbath morning he found the six-mile walk too much for him, and on his way home he sat down to rest himself on the big rock by the roadside, half way to his nearest neighbours, he said:
 ''Now, Lord, let thy servant depart in peace so soon as he gets so that he can't walk to church and back; for what am I if I cannot go up to the sanctuary of God, where his way is, and where strength and beauty are?" And even as he speaking thus to God he was not, for God took him.
 They made great lamentation over him, and he slept with his fathers; and this is the | legend over his dust, which the weather worn slate only in part preserves:
 John Bassett: "With quietness they work and eat their own bread net weary in we'll doing y